


Breathing Underwater

by scapegrace74



Series: Metric Universe [4]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:15:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24462607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scapegrace74/pseuds/scapegrace74
Summary: This one is for Soloh, who apparently loves Metric as much as I do, and wanted to know just what the hell I was inferring happened between Jamie and Geillis in The Beginning.  Be careful what you ask for, friend!
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Jamie Fraser/Geillis Duncan (implied)
Series: Metric Universe [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759669
Comments: 17
Kudos: 80





	Breathing Underwater

**April 6, 2015, The Royal London Hospital**

“Nurse Beauchamp! There’s somebody asking for you at the admitting desk.”

Though she’d never served, Georgina Ives would have made an excellent drill sergeant. Claire fought the urge to salute every time the veteran ward clerk addressed her.

She was turning away when Mrs. Ives saw fit to add, “Perhaps you could tell your gentleman friend that a hospital is no place for a social call.”

Claire barely acknowledged this parting gibe, but her heart started to pound as she trudged on weary feet down the long beige hallway of the A&E. She couldn’t imagine who was asking for her. There was no-one in her life who answered to Georgina’s definition of a gentleman. Unless...

Turning the corner towards Admissions, the visitor’s silhouette immediately came into view and she breathed a sigh of relief. Backlit by the late afternoon sunlight flooding through the automatic glass doors that led to the ambulance bay, the man cut an imposing figure. Tall and broad through the shoulders, he had the tense alertness of a soldier, but the boyish auburn curls that dusted his ears and nape were definitely not regulation. Still, he could be a former patient from Afghanistan, turned civilian like herself.

The rubber scritch of her shoes announced her approach and the man turned around. Those same beautiful curls framed a strong brow, cheekbones chiseled by the angels and intense blue eyes that greeted her like a long-lost friend. Which was strange, because she was now fairly certain they had never met.

His expression changed minutely, a wispy cloud blown over the sun, taking on a look of saddened resignation out of place in one so young.

She realized they had both been hoping she would recognize him.

**

She was shorter than he remembered. Her shoulders drooped with the weight of a long shift confronting an endless stream of strangers at their lowest ebb. 

“Nurse Beauchamp?” he asked, as though he hadn’t memorized her unruly name upon learning it from a friendly ICU nurse weeks ago.

“Yes, that’s me. And you are...?” Her voice was exactly as he’d remembered it. Clipped and precise, like it was in a hurry to be someplace else.

“James Fraser. Ye may nae remember me, but ye were my trauma nurse, awhile back. On Hogmanay, errr, New Year’s, tae be exact. My truck responded tae an industrial fire, an’ there was an explosion...”

He still woke to the ghostly sensation of a million blades of pain racing up his back, the air around him disappearing, the endless count of a single heartbeat, followed by a blast that erased his existence and remade it anew.

A cool hand touched his wrist, drawing him back into the present.

“Of course. I remember you now. It’s wonderful to see you so well recovered.”

“Aye. I was upstairs, meetin’ wi’ the plastic surgeon, an’ it seemed a good time tae seek ye out, tae thank ye for...”

“Think nothing of it, Mr. Fraser. It’s what I do.”

He wanted to explain that it was more than that. According to the ICU nurse, Ms. Beauchamp had tended him for the forty brief minutes between his arrival by ambulance and the emergency surgery that removed layers of charred dermis from his back, leaving muscle and tissue exposed to the cruel touch of the world. It wasn’t her nursing he was thanking her for, it was her survival. She too had gone to the fires of hell, and come back to life again. If she could do it, then so could he.

He was trying to find a way to explain all this to her without sounding utterly unhinged when a familiar voice intruded.

“Jamie?”

He knew who it was before looking. They were friends, of course. It was how they’d met, the first time. It stood to reason that they might work at the same hospital. For all the time he’d spent considering this encounter, however, this was one eventuality he hadn’t foreseen.

“Geillis,” he greeted her as pleasantly as he could manage. It wasn’t her fault his native luck had fled, and left him with piles of dreck.

“It’s been a while,” Geillis said, appraising him with a mischievous grin. “How ‘ave ye been, then?”

Jamie opened and closed his mouth, not knowing what to say. How had he been? He’d been the blade, and he’d been the knife. A few moments before he’d been a kite, and now he was the weight plummeting it down to earth. He’d survived, only to be just a half-beat out of sync with the march of life. He was alive, but he was breathing underwater.

“You two know each other?” Nurse Beauchamp asked, observing their awkward meeting.

“Aye, we’re... acquainted...” Geillis smirked, making the nature of their acquaintance quite clear to anyone paying attention. And if there was one thing he knew about Nurse Beauchamp, it was that she was always paying attention.

Realizing there was no salvaging the situation, Jamie ran a shaking hand through his hair.

“I’ll be leavin’ ye two tae yer work. Thank ye again, Nurse Beauchamp. Geillis.” He nodded briefly to each of them and made his way into the bright sunshine on watery legs, collapsing onto the nearest vacant bench.

Damn.


End file.
